


oh mother, tell your children not to do what i have done

by liquidblood (honeysparks)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Codependency, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Reckless Dean, Season/Series 01, Songfic, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wincest Writing Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeysparks/pseuds/liquidblood
Summary: When Sam leaves for college, Dean falls apart. He's reckless, downright suicidal, and ends up making some questionable decisions with very turbulent consequences.





	oh mother, tell your children not to do what i have done

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the wincest writing challenge round eleven!

**_"There is a house in New Orleans_ **  
**_They call the Rising Sun,"_**

When Sam leaves for college, Dean falls apart. He doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, and takes on cases without more than a single knife and partially-loaded gun.

There's no denying it- every hunt is a subtle suicide mission.

Dean stumbles into vampire nests drunk, his machete swinging at anything moving. He sets wendigo nests ablaze, not caring to save any half-alive victims still trapped inside. When John rebukes him for it, Dean shouts back, craving the sting and ache of the angry slaps he receives in turn. 

He works needlessly on Baby, replacing parts that are still spanking new and taking apart her engine only to put her back together right away. He takes care of her exterior, keeping her shiny and scratch-free, but her inside is filthy. Beer bottles litter the backseats and bloodstains are smeared across her leather seats.

In a way, she represents Dean himself. 

 

* * *

 

**_"Spend your lives in sin and misery,"_ **

Dean is insatiable, and completely satisfied all at once. 

He downs bottles upon bottles of whiskey at one go, cleaning his firearms and humming songs he'd sing to his Sammy when dad was away. When it comes to sex, Dean hooks up with the waitresses and bartenders in town after town. He leaves when he's brought them over the edge, pulling his clothes on as they tremble and sigh in pleasure. Dean gets himself off in his car, thinking of fumbling hands on his body and sheepish smiles from twinkling hazel eyes behind a shaggy fringe.

Wrecked as he is, he doesn't cry. Never has, not even after his first hunts when John bandaged his bleeding cuts and told him to suck it up. But this feels different; worse somehow. The tears are choked up in his throat, and no amount of drinking or reminiscing disentangles the knot in his chest. 

 

* * *

 

**_"Well, I got one foot on the platform  
_ _The other foot on the train,"_ **

He shouldn't be here, he knows, he knows, he fucking knows.

And yet, under the dim lighting of a single streetlamp a hundred yards away, Dean sits in the back of a taxi at the entrance to Stanford. The driver asks him twice if he's going to pay and get down, and eventually Dean knocks him out with a single harmless hit to the head so he doesn't have to explain that he shouldn't be there, and that calling for the cab was a mistake.

Dean slouches in the backseat in silence, looking at the lighted windows of the dormitory building. He wonders which room Sam is in. Wonders if there's someone else in his life now. Someone who takes care of him. God knows they'd keep Sam out of danger better than Dean ever could. 

With that bitter thought in mind, Dean takes a gulp of water to keep from retching. He moves the driver to the passenger seat and drives them back to the city where he leaves twice the sum of his fare for the driver's troubles. 

In the days and weeks afterward, Dean thinks about going back to Stanford and maybe getting out of the car this time. 

He never does. 

 

* * *

 

It's in the middle of a job that Dean breaks. 

John's being chased by fuckers they can't see. He's yelling orders at Dean, firing rounds and rounds from the shotgun to no avail. The grenades are what work eventually. Explosions rock whatever is chasing them, and the sound of wounded yelps and scampering fill the air. 

The walk back to the car is sullen. John's angry, as usual, but Dean isn't hearing any of it. All he can think about is how much he misses Sam. How his brother's nervous but relieved laugh would've drowned out the sound of the grenades, and how John would've let Dean off easy as to not upset Sam with his harsh words. 

John tumbles into the backseat, leaving a wounded and shocked Dean to drive them back to the motel, and as Dean puts the car in reverse, he imagines Sam beside him, helping tend to the wounds on his legs and arms and chastising him for not being more careful.

Twice, Dean laughs at something the Sammy in his head says, and John flicks a flask of blessed water on him. Dean grunts in annoyance, but he can't blame his dad. It's been a while since even the hint of a smile has passed his face, and now he's laughing. 

They get back to the motel and Dean gets to work.

He has to wait for John's steady snores before he hits the books, but it's worth it. Dean finds what he wants in no time, and the steps are simple. They have all the necessary materials, the incantation is fairly easy Latin, and before he can have the time to doubt what he's doing, _it's done_. 

 

* * *

 

**_"I'm goin' back [...]  
_ _To wear that ball and chain,"_**

When Sam comes back, Dean doesn't know what to do with himself. 

He's ecstatic, he's angry, he's frustrated. But everything is buried underneath pure, euphoric relief. He has his other half back, and he's not letting it leave again. Come hellfire, come heaven, come the fucking end of the world, Dean doesn't think he'd be able to go on without his perpetual duty of taking care of Sam.

His posture has been ruined from the weight of upholding the remains of his family, and the only cane he's been given is the family business. Lightening the load only hurts the cracks in his spine, and he'd rather have it all than anything less than everything. 

Sam is understandably morose at first, but he lightens up after the first couple of jobs finished. Dean supposes he wouldn't call it lightening up as much as he would call it immersing himself in his work to escape the very reason he's returned to it.

Their conversations nearly never steer to the dreaded topic of Sam's lost love, and on the rare occasion that they do, Dean makes sure to turn away so Sam can't see his face. He thinks his guilt would drown them both.

 

* * *

 

 

**_"Well, there is a house in New Orleans_ **  
_They call the Rising Sun_  
_And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy_  
_And God, I know I'm one."_

Dean watches Sam crumble. No matter how many times they talk about how none of it was Sam's fault, the conversation always ends the same way. Tears gather in Sam's eyes and insists with ruined rage that it was all because of him.

Dean doesn't know how to to tell him that he knows, really fucking knows, that it wasn't. 

He watches his baby brother go through the same agony he endured; watches the bottles pile up and the recklessness singe its way through each hunt. It seems like poetic justice, but Dean knows it isn't, because he knows that unlike himself, Sam asked for none of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope readers catch on to what i've done here! it's quite a dark implication, and i had fun executing it.  
> comment what you think happened and see if you got it ;-)


End file.
